Beijing Day 1 8 April 2008

8 April 2008
Today started out with expectations of excitement and fun, but has sadly down spiraled to disappointment. The flight was fine and breakfast, though unconventional by Western standards was good. The reception In Beijing was good. We met Lily, our English speaking tour guide for the next four days. First we went to a restaurant for family style Chinese eating with more people we don’t know. This is weird as well, I don’t know them nor their hygiene habits. This is something that often crosses my mind at mealtimes as chopsticks often go into the mouth and then back into a common dish – talk about double dipping!
Our first site to see was a temple not associated with a religion per se, but seemingly a root of Chinese culture – The Temple of Heaven and the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, built in 1420 Ming Dynasty. Twice a year, the Chinese emperor would come to this place and make animal sacrifices. In the spring at the Temple of Heaven and in the fall at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. The former is like a miniature of the latter. All important buildings are in a line and before them is the Heavenly Center stone, which is circular(as the Chinese thought the sky was round and the Earth rectangular in the past) and has three terraces, the lower representing hell , the middle: common ground and the upper: heaven. The roofs of the buildings are blue to represent the sky. The Harvest building, though impressive, was not easily viewed as you could not go inside and there are herds of people everywhere, touring. This begins the spiral.
There are so many people everywhere and though I had read about the bumping into each other and not really respecting each others space, I didn’t think it would get to me so much. But, added to the fact that I awoke at 3am, still jetlagged, it bothered me a lot today. Also, we did not leave from the airport to go to the hotel and get rid of our things as I had suspected, so I had to carry my computer bag all over (so did Shannon) for safety. This adds to the strain.
After this we went to Prince Gong’s mansion. Prince Gong was apparently advisor to an Emperor in the Qing dynasty. He wanted to only be second to the Emperor, himself, so he had a mini- Great Wall built in his gardens. I think there’s another building that we didn’t see due to work for the Olympics, but I am not sure. This was a place I felt herded as the space was much smaller and there were tons of people. Many gaped, several asked for photos, especially when the three of us dressed in traditional Chinese garb for pictures. The grounds were pretty, but hard to enjoy due to the masses.
Next we went to a garden where the largest of three glazed walls sits. It has nine dragons, the middle of which is yellow. This one is also special as it has two sides. By this point we were all getting realy tired, but we had lost 3 of our group as someone needed to go to the hospital. This is not as grave or worrisome as it sounds. For any ailment, large or small people go to the hospital and this was apparently a small ailment as the trio were back and eating at dinner time.
Dinner was different than lunch – a lot more vegetables. There were two dishes the Chinese people sent back and said it was no good without letting us try it. They got upset because there were so many vegetable dishes and not enough meat. Apparently they felt it was a poor representation of China and that China was losing face over the lack of meat in the meal. I was enjoying what I ate, but was curious why the two dishes were sent back. In trying to ask I think I aggravated the situation and there was excessive loud arguing about the “poor” meal. I thought they just thought the food didn’t taste goo- which we wouldn’t know as we have nothing really to compare it to, but it turned out they were concerned we would think less of China because of this meal. The arguing and loudness and complaining to the tour guides was much more unsettling than the meal. They told the tour guide she was lying when she truthfully told them we like the meal. It was confusing and there was a lot of loud voices and I just wanted it to stop. So I got up and made toward the door of the restaurant where our guides were. Soon after all got up and we got on the bus for about 1 hour, with much of this conversation continuing.
Getting off the bus and into the hotel was fun (sarcasm alert). We are sitting in the back so we can “hear” Lily while the Chinese tour guide talks over a microphone to the people in the front. So, we’re last off and too polite to push and shove our way through the crowd. We get into the “3 star” hotel and we’re last to get our room cards. Lily is nice enough to drop us off, though the Chinese on our tour couldn’t seem to find their room and walked into ours after a worker opened it for us. The room is a little to be asked for. In the states a three star hotel would be much more comfortable and probably we would have internet. Not so here. The bed is a box-spring with no mattress, no internet and no sound dampening walls. It’s gonna be a long 4 days. I hope I sleep better tonight and regain some of my optimism as right now I want to go home or at least to Hang Zhou. At least there are some great sites to see – the Great Wall being the one to really be grateful for the chance to see.